


Strange (Millard Nullings x Reader)

by JanusScientes



Series: Millard Nullings' Peculiar Life [1]
Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: 17 Reader, 18 Millard, Adventure, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Friendship, Future Romance, Travel, haven't read the book, movieverse, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 09:18:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanusScientes/pseuds/JanusScientes
Summary: There's a new girl in Miss Peregrine's custody and she has a strange relationship with Millard.





	Strange (Millard Nullings x Reader)

**Author's Note:**

> Movieverse

Millard was extremely clever. Despite his friends and roommates recognizing him for other traits of his, he had a gift. Whether inborn or a byproduct of his peculiarity, no one knew.  
Still, he had a great gift for observation and investigation. He often noticed things before anyone else did, sometimes he even gained on Miss Peregrine herself, and he knew when something was wrong.  
So when the new girl started avoiding him like the plague he knew he'd either done something wrong or scared her off somehow. But it hadn't always been that way.  
She came from the 21st century and she was, to put it lightly, peculiar. Her clothes were strange and very colourful, nothing like theirs, she talked differently, used strange words that he assumed were curse words, but never really got a confirmation, her attitude was strange. What he found unusual is that the new girl usually opted for pants instead of dresses, contrary to the other girls on the Home, she acted freely, never curtsied, never hid her moods, never talked too politely like Emma and Olive did, and had absolutely none of the reservations the other girls had. On more than one occasion she'd played ball with him and Hugh, stayed late for a game of checkers or poker, not that Miss Peregrine knew about any of that, and just acted like one of the guys. And he was completely smitten with her.  
After Jacob Portman had helped save the ymbrines from Black Pool and had boarded the Augusta, Miss Peregrine had realized that her children were not exactly children anymore. They had taken the risk to rescue her and a few more ymbrines, had a plan that worked and had generally behaved very mature about the situation. So, Miss Peregrine allowed them a bit more freedom, once they found a new Home. She allowed them to roam around the world for short periods of time so long as they wrote to her every other day, reporting to her that they were fine and in no danger at all.  
It had been strange when Millard had first thought about going out into the ordinary world. At first he thought he would be forced to move around naked all the time, which, even if he was used to it, didn't sound like that great of a plan. Then, his friend Jacob had accidentally and jokingly suggested makeup. Strangely enough the idea didn't sound that far-fetched at all. He had secretly asked Jake to get him some of the supplies from the modern world, of course matched with a pair of eye lenses and hair dye.  
It had been very strange at first but once Millard was confident that no normal will see him unseen he dared ask Miss Peregrine for a short vacation outside the loop. And interestingly enough she granted it to him. Millard suddenly got very used to walking the busy streets with the normals, talking to them, making friends, even having a girl flirt with him every once in a while.  
But most importantly, Millard aged, with all his travels' combined duration he'd gained about five years on his friends. This meant that around the time the new girl arrived at the Home he was more an adult than a child, as he'd hit the strange age of 18. Even better was that he'd gained some experience on the outside world and he'd become a lot more than a twelve-year-old that only knew rejection and life in an isolated environment. But he changed, he grew.  
So to him it had been extremely difficult to process why this girl was trying to bring him back to the time was just a kid, invisible, misunderstood and lonely, even if doing so unintentuonally.  
It all seemed so very weird and unnatural. When she came to Miss Peregrine's door with tears in her eyes, stating that her parents sent her off because she was a freak, she seemed very open towards the invisible boy. Invisible because by that time Millard was so used to wearing a disguise when exiting the loop that when he came back all he wanted was to free his skin again. So at the Home he was still Mellard, the invisible, and he could still pull those little pranks he loved on people.  
It felt strange to him that she'd liked him first and then pushed him away, in contrast with everyone else in the house, who had taken their time warmongering up to him in the natural order of things.  
Maybe it's something I've done, he contemplated, maybe I scared her off somehow.  
So, naturally, the invisible boy sought her attention even more after that in order for her to feel better being around him so he could finally ask where he went wrong, though she started avoiding him even further, never walking outside the house when he was outdoors, rather doing so once he walked inside. It hurt, it really did.  
Once, after dinner Miss Peregrine had made the two of them fix the table, and as the rest of the house's inhabitants left the dining hall, the two of them remained awkwardly sitting across from each other, her looking away from him, while his eyes nailed in her face, trying to read for any signs of fear, disgust, anything really.  
Then she stood, swiftly and nimbly starting to gather the empty plates on the table, fixing herself wholy into the task. Millard had almost given up on that talk he'd planned with her and, with a defeated and flat sigh he started mirroring her actions.  
When the table was clean and dish-free there was the question of who will do the dishes. The new girl, hoping to bore Millard with the task and make him leave, started on it.  
"I could dry them... if you want me to." he offered in his, newly mutated teen voice, "it'll be done quicker." In truth he just wanted to be close to her, even if she hated him for it.  
And it went a little like this - she washed and handed him the dishes to dry them and put them away. He stood closely to her to prevent any of the cutlery from falling and breaking after one very close call. What's more, she didn't try to get away, not when they were so very close, neither when their arms brushed as they worked side by side.  
So if she didn't mind him at those moments, then why had she cowered at his appearance?  
It's probably... Maybe... Could be...  
But nothing came to mind.  
"Why do you hate me so much?" he blurted.  
And immediately after, regret settled.  
Way to go, Nullings! Very smooth! Now she probably thinks I'm a weirdo too!  
But still, there was some sort of silver lining. This girl was a very honest one. He'd watched her answer strange and, sometimes incriminating, questions with full detail and extreme sincereness. So he knew that, when posed before the question, she would inevitably have to answer. Which, therefore, meant that he could either fix whatever it was that was wrong, or at least he'd know what the issue is and would deal with it, even if reluctantly so.  
The look she gave him when he asked though. It was utter confusion combined with offense and sadness. Her hands had stopped soaping the dish she held, her frame was completely rigid, stony and the look on her face could have been a painting.  
Millard was very clever. But still he failed to read the features on the new girl's face. His heart and mind filled with worry and his heart beat erratically.  
"Why would you even think that?" she asked softly, seeming extremely upset about the whole ordeal.  
"You avoid me all the time." he mumbled, trying to stop his shoulders from slumping and his heart from dropping. "And all I wanted was for us to be friends." or more...  
"Millard, I don't hate you. On the contrary, I actually like you a lot!" she smiled shyly, having to raise her eyes to meet what she thought were his, she had actually been quite close.  
"I'm just too scared of offending you. Like I am now. I just..." she bit her lip and reached to shut the water tap. "I don't know how and where to look at you and that makes me feel guilty that I can't see you, and I feel like I would hurt you if I look at you the wrong way..." she rambled, quick and clumsy, as if in a hurry to clear this little misunderstanding, "...so I just thought.... "  
"That avoiding me is better than asking what's okay and what's not?" he asked humorously. Her face changed completely. It carried the tell-tale signs of a person internally scolding themselves.  
"Well when you put it like that it sound terribly dumb." he couldn't help but chuckle and consider the whole situation over again.  
This had actually been very considerate of her, in an upside-down way. She had only wanted him to feel accepted, she'd had good and noble intentions, even if it hadn't turned out the way she'd hoped for.  
"How about we put that behind us?" he offered with a smile on his face, and even though she couldn't see it, she felt the pressure lift off her shoulders.  
This was the beginning of something brand new.


End file.
